When involved in business development or prospecting, great amounts of emphasis are commonly placed on striving to become "interesting" in our interaction with others; but instead, consider the concept of becoming more "interested." You might be surprised at the results!

I'm Calling BecauseWhen making outbound prospecting calls we only have a few seconds to make an impression. To maximize effectiveness we need a strong introductory statement... and it should not be all about us!

In slower economic times, people become more cautious. Not only are "buyers" harder to find, but they also take longer to buy and tend to buy form the safest sources. So, be ready to adapt your team’s sales habits...

Many business owners, managers and sales people tell us that eighty-percent of their business comes from twenty-percent of their customers. The Pareto principle…

Whether this perspective accurately describes your business situation or not, it is still likely that some concentrated percentage of your customer base generates the majority of your sales revenue. Similarly, some concentrated or relatively small percentage of your current and prospective customers most likely makes-up the majority of your new business pipeline.

The road to "you know where" is paved with good intentions! As each new year arrives ‘tis the season for, among other things, New Year’s resolutions.

In the business world, many of us will resolve to pursue revenue growth in one way or another, possibly via new business development, and our hearts will tell us that this year we’ll succeed; our intentions will be good! However, many of January’s goals will sadly join the ranks of the unachieved...

If you would like to grow your business or sales territory, try making a true commitment to the proactive components of your business development plan.

We all know this is hard work. A good start is to create an annualized business development plan, but simply crafting the plan isn’t enough! We must commit to the plan as well as to the proactive components of the plan.

How often must we remind our customers of the value we bring to the table?

Most people agree that, ideally, they'd like to "remind" their customers many times each year; in fact, they say they'd like to keep a reminder of some sort in front of their customers as frequently as possible. This leads us to a couple of critical questions...

The primary functions of any business are to get customers and keep them.

While getting customers is primarily the job of sales and marketing personnel, KEEPING those customers is the responsibility of EVERYONE in the organization, from those involved in producing the product or delivering the service, quality assurance, customer service, technical support, customer service, credit and collections, right through to the shipping personnel.

Exhibiting or attending a tradeshow is a common component of many business development efforts. The experience can be fun, but lots of sales managers will tell you that "shows" can be expensive, and in many cases yield nothing. Here's a plan to make tradeshow selling more productive...

I'm Calling BecauseWhen making outbound prospecting calls we only have a few seconds to make an impression. To maximize effectiveness we need a strong introductory statement... and it should not be all about us!